COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



another, but its going through either is still 

 free'' If by this it is meant that a nation's pro- 

 gress need not be due to constraint exercised over 

 it by other nations, the statement is true, but it 

 is one which no one has thought of disputing. 

 But if it is meant that the latter of two succes- 

 sive stages of civilization is not caused by the 

 former, the statement destroys itself. By ad- 

 mitting that " a nation may have to go through 

 one stage of civilization before it can reach an- 

 other," Mr. Smith gives up his case and con- 

 cedes all which has ever been claimed by those 

 who would construct a science of history. If 

 there is a definite order of sequence among the 

 stages of civilization, that order may sooner or 

 later be formulated, and to formulate that order 

 is to found sociology as a science. But if causa- 

 tion in history is denied, if each epoch is not 

 determined by the preceding epoch, then the 

 inference is inevitable that the French Revolu- 

 tion might have happened in the reign of Louis 

 XL, or that the progress of Christianity might 

 have been eastward instead of westward. Thus 

 all conception of progress, as well as all con- 

 ception of order, is at an end. Thus the vast 

 domain of History, numbering among its com- 

 ponent divisions the phenomena of Language, 

 Art, Religion, and Government, the products 

 of social activity as well as the phases of social 

 progress, becomes an unruly chaos, a Tohu-va- 

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